Originally posted by Ushgarak Well it IS an outlier, because it's different to every other presentation we've seen.

That doesn't necessarily mean writing it off, though. If you think that view of things is better, that's no problem at all. I'd even agree there's a lot to discuss with that sort of philosophy. People are very much entitled to make their own creative interpretations of Star Wars.

I just don't feel it is what mainstream Star Wars is, and its canonicity is troublesome when you have two different creative takes in the same continuity.

That seems fair, though I think there is room for the various presentations of balance to be reconciled with one another.

As for the mainstream interpretation, I think Star Wars is very much what you make of it, TCW is very much mainstream, and considering Lucas' involvement, we can't even be sure his opinion aligns with the one your proposing.

Might it be the interpretation of the larger fanbase? And those working on Star Wars moving forward? Possibly, maybe even probably. At least in a practical sense i.e. good guys beating bad guys. But again when the very concept remains muddied within the SW continuity, we can't expect a clear cut "mainstream" interpretation to emerge either.

Well remember the final TCW arc split the Force up into 2 aspects- The Living Force and the Cosmic Force.

The impression I got is The Force Wielders on Mortis were more concerned with the Cosmic Balance, in which the Light Side and Dark Side need to both exist equally, so living beings can make their own choices with which path to follow.

Whereas the Jedi view of bringing balance was focused on more on the Living Force, where the Light Side should be more the prominent use of the Force within living beings, and as a result having a relatively stable Galaxy.
In fact even the Sith refer to that as Balance, as when Darth Maul gets revived in TCW he notes the Force is out of balance, to which Opress responds that there is a Galaxy wide conflict causing that.

Originally posted by Beniboybling That seems fair, though I think there is room for the various presentations of balance to be reconciled with one another.

As for the mainstream interpretation, I think Star Wars is very much what you make of it, TCW is very much mainstream, and considering Lucas' involvement, we can't even be sure his opinion aligns with the one your proposing.

Might it be the interpretation of the larger fanbase? And those working on Star Wars moving forward? Possibly, maybe even probably. At least in a practical sense i.e. good guys beating bad guys. But again when the very concept remains muddied within the SW continuity, we can't expect a clear cut "mainstream" interpretation to emerge either.

One out-of-step story in TCW is not remotely mainstream though. It's definitely the outlier, and we can see GL;'s views all through the main franchise.

I don't really think it will be the view going forward, no- TFA is taking a straight 'Jedi = balance = good guys' take.

I still don't see why we can't just say that the Force guys on Mortis had an opinion but were, ultimately, wrong.

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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

Originally posted by Beniboybling Can you really claim the philosophy of Star Wars is so simple to the point at which it shouldn't even be discussed, when your incapable of factoring the Mortis arc into your assessment of it?

I agree it's an outlier.

But SW is in the end nothing more than entertainment. How serious do we need to take it as a philosophy?

We hardly have anything to go on. If anyone would be an expert, or a guru, it would be Lucas. But Lucas keeps changing his mind about the Force works. And clearly, Lucas only wanted to use to Force as a metaphor, as something that would make people think about life, things we cannot see, spirituality, God or the supermatural. Nothing more. Certainly not intended to deep into Forceness...

So yes, it IS so simple. Talk about religions of philosophies that have more to go on, like hinduism, christianity, islam, boeddism, Scientology whatever... and there's a forum for that outside of the SW forum. Check that out.

At least both view points agree that the dark side having more power is the Force being out of balance. So the Jedi are definitely required to keep that balance. And any darksider threat needs to be kept in check for balance.

If you are just going by number of viewers, the films have WAY more viewers (and are far more significant) than TCW. But it's irrelevant anyway- this is one small storyline that says something in contrary to the entire rest of the saga. That is, factually, the outlier- NOT mainstream

You saying those beings have the ultimate right/wrong authority is only opinion. I see no reason to think that at all.

As DT says, the positions cannot be reconciled. They openly contradict. I think you will most definitely see the simple Jedi/good guys/light/balance view going on.

Also, please don't mis-quote queeq. He didn't say not to take SW seriously (though it has limits). He said not to take it seriously as philosophy.

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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

Originally posted by Darth Thor The Jedi view of balance clearly differs with The Fathers view.

At least both view points agree that the dark side having more power is the Force being out of balance. So the Jedi are definitely required to keep that balance. And any darksider threat needs to be kept in check for balance.

Seemingly, but the Jedi are biased for obvious reasons.

But that is also true, which in my opinion is how the two stances can be reconciled. If we consider the dark side growing in power and attempting to disrupt the balance as evil, restoring balance involves good guys doing away with evil from both points of view, which what happens in Mortis.

The only way they differ is that the Jedi seem to think the dark side needs to be destroyed entirely, and can't exist in a symbiotic state, but even that isn't explicitly stated and drawn into question by Yoda's dark side in the Mortis arc.

I think overcomplicating it is assuming an irreconciable difference between the two stances tbh, they are really not that different.

Originally posted by Ushgarak If you are just going by number of viewers, the films have WAY more viewers (and are far more significant) than TCW. But it's irrelevant anyway- this is one small storyline that says something in contrary to the entire rest of the saga. That is, factually, the outlier- NOT mainstream

You saying those beings have the ultimate right/wrong authority is only opinion. I see no reason to think that at all.

As DT says, the positions cannot be reconciled. They openly contradict. I think you will most definitely see the simple Jedi/good guys/light/balance view going on.

Also, please don't mis-quote queeq. He didn't say not to take SW seriously (though it has limits). He said not to take it seriously as philosophy.

Whose suggesting we treat Star Wars as way of life? Lol. Obviously this has no impact on my personal philosophy/morality.

All I'm suggesting is the concept of balance and the Force can be considered more complex and possessing greater discussion value than you think. And pointed out if "it's just a movie", why discuss any of it in serious depth at all, as we do across these boards.

However this is obviously not a discussion you're interesting in having, so I won't waste any more of your time.

Originally posted by Beniboybling Seemingly, but the Jedi are biased for obvious reasons.

But that is also true, which in my opinion is how the two stances can be reconciled. If we consider the dark side growing in power and attempting to disrupt the balance as evil, restoring balance involves good guys doing away with evil from both points of view, which what happens in Mortis.

The only way they differ is that the Jedi seem to think the dark side needs to be destroyed entirely, and can't exist in a symbiotic state, but even that isn't explicitly stated and drawn into question by Yoda's dark side in the Mortis arc.

I think overcomplicating it is assuming an irreconciable difference between the two stances tbh, they are really not that different.Whose suggesting we treat Star Wars as way of life? Lol. Obviously this has no impact on my personal philosophy/morality.

All I'm suggesting is the concept of balance and the Force can be considered more complex and possessing greater discussion value than you think. And pointed out if "it's just a movie", why discuss any of it in serious depth at all, as we do across these boards.

However this is obviously not a discussion you're interesting in having, so I won't waste any more of your time.

I think you have a mistaken notion of the value of 'complexity' as applied here. In fact, I think GL's notion is far more interesting than the rather boring (and done to death in other stories) shades you're putting forwards. SW is refreshingly distinct here. Besides which, whilst the good and bad guys are clearly defined, GL's notion of symbiotic balance (as represented by the Light Side) can be considered in tremendously complex detail, if one had the desire. You don't need what you propose for complexity, and not all complexity is good.

As for treating SW as a way of life- go back and you'll see queeq's thrust was that you seem to be applying principles from the real world and not from the larger mythos of SW itself.

As for reconciliation- well, you can write in anything you like, but writing in an unneeded complication and then writing it back together again achieves very little in this case- easier just not to consider the outlier.

You talk about the Jedi destroying the Dark Side completely- that's going into 'vague cosmos'; territory again. Like I say, the Jedi don't nuke Dagobah. They acknowledge the Dark Side exists. What they do is stop it at all times. Render it powerless. And little wonder, because it brings nothing but pain and evil. We have never seen any person on the Dark Side doing anything at all to exist within balance- they are 100% wrecking it.

If you want to take the remote philosophical view in a galaxy where the Dark Side has to exist, then the purpose of the Dark Side within balance is to be stopped- it is something that needs to be overcome to achieve balance. People will be tested by the Dark Side but find balance when they overcome it (we saw Anakin fail this and Luke succeed). The same concept can be applied to biological systems, societies and the cosmos at large. If there was no Dark Side, you would not be able to find this balance within yourself. But that still means the balanced universe is one where the Light Side has defeated the Dark.

I think calling the Jedi 'biased' is a big mistake as well. Again, SW is not that sort of story. The Jedi aren't adhering to dogma; they don't have pre-set views they impose regardless of the truth. Their views are based on their genuine understanding of the cosmos. Seeing as the Jedi always bring good results and the Dark Side always brings, from what we have seen, genocidal evil, I think it's hard to argue the point with them.

Do you honestly think the films going forward are going to be based at all on that Mortis thing? I mean, they're barely based on the PT either but at least it was acknowledged.

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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

Originally posted by Beniboybling Seemingly, but the Jedi are biased for obvious reasons.

But that is also true, which in my opinion is how the two stances can be reconciled. If we consider the dark side growing in power and attempting to disrupt the balance as evil, restoring balance involves good guys doing away with evil from both points of view, which what happens in Mortis.

The only way they differ is that the Jedi seem to think the dark side needs to be destroyed entirely, and can't exist in a symbiotic state, but even that isn't explicitly stated and drawn into question by Yoda's dark side in the Mortis arc.

I think The Father's view of balance was a more cosmic view tbh. That both Light Side and the Dark sides of the Force need to exist pretty equally. Whereas the Jedi are more concerned with not letting a bunch of darksiders grow too powerful.

Also you're right, the Jedi Prophecy never mentions destroying the Dark Side completely. Just the Sith. And there obviously wasn't going to be balance while the Sith dominated. So In-Universe there's no big contradiction really.

As for the Yoda facing his demons thing, IIRC The Mortis arc pointed at Anakin's destiny being to face his demons for him to bring balance.

Yes, it may well continue to be embodied in people. And this will continue to be a very bad idea and such people must always be stopped.

It will always continue to be embodied in people; this is inevitable. As such I don't see the substantive meaning in calling it a "very bad idea". It is the way things are - unless every living thing in the galaxy is forced, somehow, perhaps by magic, to become uniformly good. And while stopping the Sith is a practically achievable outcome, "stopping" every living thing is not, even if one were to focus only on stopping those who actively promote more evil than good. There would simply be too many of them.

The balanced galaxy we are shown is one with the Light Side completely triumphant and the Dark Side completely defeated.

But we are shown no such thing - unless you're using "Dark Side" and "Light Side" as code words for "the Sith" and "the Jedi". If a phrase such as "completely defeated" could be taken to mean "put back in equilibrium", that might work, but it really doesn't sound like it is meant that way. The very definition of the Force argues against the idea that it would be uniformly good in its natural state. It is supposed to be an energy field generated by all living things - in essence, generated by the act of living. It has been described as the combined vibrations of living things. In what universe would the energies generated by living things ever be uniformly good in nature?

Who cares, if its not being embodied in any way which has power? It's literally irrelevant at that point.

You seem to act as if Jedi and Sith are the only relevant beings, as if the light side is generated solely by the Jedi and the dark side is generated solely by the Sith. But Force adepts constitute a vanishingly small percentage of the living things in the universe. The dark side does not have to be "embodied" in Sith to have power, or else there would have been no reason for anyone to become a Sith in the first place.

It's far more widespread than anything that could be stopped by the Jedi at all times, isn't it? There are only so many Jedi, while there are uncounted planets out there with vast numbers of lifeforms on them.

And I will remind you that GL directly and unequivocally stated that balance is restored by getting rid of evil in the universe. Sure, we don't have to overdo it in taking that literally- he doesn't mean the entire concept is annihilated from the cosmos

It makes no sense at all to take that literally: to act as if "evil in the universe" means "all evil in the universe" or, even worse, the capacity for evil which arises from free will. On the other hand, if we interpret "evil in the universe" to be a verbal shorthand representing only the leading forces of evil - namely the Sith/Empire - not only does it then match what we see happen in the films, but it also matches every other statement Lucas has said on the topic, including all the ones which outright contradict the nonsensical overly-literal reading. For if we take the indefensibly literal approach it means that Lucas - for one brief shining moment - believed one thing in 2000 but believed the exact opposite in, for example, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, and 2002. As a hint toward what Lucas really means when he says "evil in the universe", we might inspect the "Birth of the Lightsaber" featurette: "So he was fighting as hard as he could; he was fighting the man who killed his father; fighting the man who killed Obi-Wan Kenobi; fighting the man who would personify evil in the universe." We can say that Sith "personify" evil in the universe without making the mistake of treating them as though they are the aggregate totality of all evil anywhere.

What there has never been in the SW story, at any point, ever, is any suggestion or demonstration that the Light Side could ever be a problem in this cosmic equation.

That's not true. It was suggested outright by the Father in TCW's "Overlords". That it is not something which happened in the saga we have so far does not mean that it is impossible in the SW universe.

Of course there could be balance without the Jedi. ( And if we're going down the road of character infallibility, there are other characters who might be considered. ) Take a hypothetical condition of balance, such as the one which is supposed to be restored as a result of ROTJ. Now assume that for some abstract reason the remaining Jedi are removed from the stage. Is there not still a balance between the sides of the Force at that point? Or consider the time before the Force-using orders arose in the first place, or a time before the emergence of higher-order sapient life forms. Do you assume that the Force could not be balanced in these cases? In practical terms the Jedi are only required for balance in the sense that they are ultimately, for narrative reasons, the only ones who can be expected to successfully defeat powerful darksiders... when such darksiders are already running amok.

Based only on what we see, there is no particular reason to assume that imbalance is so easy to come by. Lucas said that the Force is thrown out of balance as evil begins to take over. There is quite a large gap between evil taking over and evil having no power at all.

That's Star Wars- good guys and bad guys Light Side and Dark. Good/Light must defeat bad/Dark.

Don't conflate the sides of the Force with the Force-using organizations. These are not equivalent. The balance of the Force is not the balance of the Force-users; Force-users are not the Force. Making an invalid substitution typically leads to an invalid result.

One out-of-step story in TCW is not remotely mainstream though. It's definitely the outlier, and we can see GL;'s views all through the main franchise.

The outlier is the "gets rid of evil in the universe" quote, and only then if it is interpreted in a way that makes no logical sense. TCW's Mortis arc is fully consistent with everything else that Lucas has said, in addition to being consistent with everything in the filmic canon. It is in no way out of step with the franchise, as it concludes ( inevitably ) by reinforcing and foreshadowing what Anakin will do in ROTJ. Similarly, its prominent usage of the yin-yang symbol that represents Taoist duality is mirrored by the appearance of the same symbol during AOTC.

you seem to be applying principles from the real world and not from the larger mythos of SW itself.

This involves the issue of verisimilitude in fiction. No matter what fictional universe you're dealing with, including this one, there will always be a manifestation of principles from the real world. As an analogy, gravity exists: if you stand on the surface of an Earthlike planet and drop a rock, it falls to the ground. Anything being argued here that seems to you to be imported from the real world is only being suggested because it stands to reason that it should hold true in the SW universe as well, barring any compelling evidence to the contrary.

No, he doesn't - as far as we know. He only added content about the overall structure of the Force and the mechanism for Force sensitivity, but these facts ultimately changed nothing about what had already been established. They only added to it. What previous statements by Lucas about "how the Force works" are no longer to be considered true?

I think The Father's view of balance was a more cosmic view tbh. That both Light Side and the Dark sides of the Force need to exist pretty equally. Whereas the Jedi are more concerned with not letting a bunch of darksiders grow too powerful.

That's not true. As far as I know, the only things we have to go on to determine the Jedi view of balance are the things the Jedi say about balance, yes? Well, what do the Jedi say about balance? As a percentage of their overall dialogue it is fairly little. They link balancing the Force with destruction of the Sith. They say the prophecy tells that the Chosen One will bring balance to the Force. Et cetera. How do any of the specific things which they say about balance differ from the Father's view?

You need to be far less bitty when posting a big argument like that you know- it's close to unreadable, and you have fallen into the inevitable problem with that approach of only looking at one small part of an argument at a time rather than a connected whole, which distorts things. That's why, for example, you spend a bunch of time saying not to take something literally when that's precisely what I said as well, only you waffle on about it for no good purpose.

Your major problem here is that you seem very much to be attaching non-film ideas onto the films; if you feel I am largely equating the Jedi with the Light Side and the Sith with the Dark, well that's pretty much because that's how the films do it- the champions representing each point/ But I am definitely not using 'the Dark Side' to represent 'any evil thought in people ever'. When I talked of the Dark Side being represented in people, I meant when people have the power of the Dark Side- like Vader and Palpatine and Ren, and here is where I can continue to state with absolute certainty that the films show us that having the Dark Side embodies in such a state is incredibly bad and must be stopped at all costs- else there is suffering.

I also say you are completely incorrect in any claim that the Jedi cannot stop the Dark Side- seeing that is literally the plot of the first six films. You can refer back to the earlier statements about that in detail, and why I feel the Mortis arc in TCW is the aberrant story that needs, effectively, to be ignored, or considered to be an incorrect in-universe position.

For the rest of it, you really just need to read back what's already been said- particularly about the definition of the word 'balance' and how you have got this all wrong. You're mostly just bringing things around in circles there.

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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"

sentence by sentence quote dissecting ping pong is especially silly in the way it starts like a dozen separate and simultaneous threads of discussion in each post, each thread becoming more and more absurdly off the general point.

Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, but listen instead to your anger and your rage.